


As deep as any ocean

by yeahitshowed



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8375608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeahitshowed/pseuds/yeahitshowed
Summary: After the finale, Perry's got some questions, and LaFontaine really, really doesn't want to give her answers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated with love to Kaitlyn Alexander; it's clear how much they've cared about this ship over the course of the show, and I wanted to write a thorough happily-ever-after for the esteemed captain of the S.S. LaFerry. O captain, my captain.

“When are you going to tell me what happened to your eye?” Perry asks. 

—————————————————————————-

You can’t remember the first time Perry held your hand. Fourth grade? Third? It was early on — maybe on the playground, where she’d pull you around like a puppy, bouncing from the swingset to the monkey bars to the slide. 

Perry’s hands are hummingbirds, darting, fluttering, incapable of staying still for more than a few seconds. But in your hands, they’re peaceful. It’s always been that way. 

On the train away from Silas, you keep your hands tightly folded in your lap. 

—————————————————————————-

Perry peers over your shoulder at the mechanical eye currently in progress on your desk. The two of you are crashing with a friend of a friend until you figure out what you’ll do next. The house is tiny and there’s barely enough room for all your equipment, but there’s also no mystical door leading to a plethora of dimensions, so you’re good. Perry asks, “Is it going to look—?”

“Normal?” you guess. 

“Well…yes.”

“Probably not.”   


“Oh.” She fidgets. “I have some cookies in the oven. They should be done soon.”

“Cool.” You click the new robotic lens into place. “Chocolate chip?”

“Of course.” She reaches to adjust your eyepatch and you jump. Her hand jerks back. “I’m sorry, did I —?”

“No, it’s fine,” you assure her, “it’s just sensitive.”

“Right.” She hovers over your work station, arranging your tools and gadgets by size and color. “We should really go shopping this week. I’ve got nothing in my wardrobe but weird goth-god clothes. And who knows, there might be some kind of…eyepatch boutique, somewhere!”

You snort. “Eyepatch boutique?”

“If not, I could always start one. Fashion patches. Oh, I like that.” 

“You should write —” you start, but Perry’s way ahead of you: she’s grabbed her planner and writes “fashion patches” under the “to-do” section of the day. You don’t know how you managed without her. 

“Do you think there are patterns for eyepatches?” Perry wonders. “I’m sure there’s a website. I could make you some.”

“Promise you won’t make anything floral?”

“Well, if I find a pattern that —”

“Promise?”

She sighs. “Fine.”

For a few minutes you tinker with the eye, humming quietly. She watches you, fascinated. 

“How did you know how to do that?” she asks. “Is there a — a manual, or —?”

You shrug. “No, I just kinda figured it out. Used some stuff I learned in class. When I actually went to class.” 

“You’re so clever,” she says brightly, and your stomach turns. Despite your expert-level repression, the memory comes flooding back: _clever, but not quite clever enough. I’m guessing you just didn’t have the right —_

“LaFontaine?” Perry touches your shoulder and you spasm, slapping her hand away, scrambling off your chair. 

“Shit, Perr, I’m sorry, I —” You back away from the desk, struggling to breathe properly. “I’m gonna, uh — I need some air.” 

You make it to the top of the stairs before your knees buckle, clever but not quite clever enough, clever but not quite clever enough, Perry’s voice like knives, Perry’s hands like knives, Perry’s hands — _Perry’s_ hands — 

“Breathe, honey,” Perry says, kneeling beside you. She looks at you with big concerned eyes, wringing her hands anxiously. “In, out. You’re okay.”

“PTSD’s a bitch,” you mutter.

“It is. You’re doing so great.” She sits with you until the storm passes, reminding you to breathe. When you’re able to stand, she asks timidly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

(After the whole debacle of being pod-peopled and turned into a party-seeking zombie, you’d watched Laura’s footage of Perry tearing into the dorm room, demanding to know where you’d gone. She’d laid in Laura’s bed for hours, crying over whether the last thing you’d remember was her being awful to you. So, no, you don’t want to talk about it.)

—————————————————————————-

The eye specialist in Graz isn’t worth the price he charges, but he gives you the green light to continue with Rachel Duncan-ing yourself. Plus, Perry’s really happy that you got a professional’s opinion. 

You end up asking the specialist to help you install the finished product, and soon you’ve got a brand spankin’ new eyeball set up in your head. It looks awesome, to be honest. The iris is a steely blue, considerably lighter than your real eye. You look like a superhero, though you doubt Perry will agree.

Well, you’ll find out soon enough. Perry’s meeting you for coffee — you spot her at a table as you walk up to the cafe. She doesn’t know about the color change; you kept meaning to mention it, but somehow it fell through the cracks. Taking a breath, you push open the door and brace yourself for the onslaught.

It doesn’t come. Perry looks up, gasps softly, and that’s it. “Hey,” you say tentatively. “So…whaddaya think?”

“Oh, LaFontaine,” she says, “this is just awful.” Before your heart can fully drop to your feet, she pulls out an elegantly wrapped box and adds, “Now my color scheme is off.”

Inside the box is a knit beanie that perfectly matches your organic eye. Perry watches you unwrap it, hands twisting themselves into a knot on the table. “Aw, Perr.”

“I can add some light blue to match,” she says. “Here, I’ll take it back.”

“No!” You jam the beanie on your head. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” 

“How does it feel?”

“Uh — beanie-like?”

“The eye. How does the eye feel.”

“Uh— Eye-like?” 

“That tone’s really not necessary, LaF,” she says crossly. “I’m just asking a question.”

“It doesn’t feel like anything.” You glance around the cafe, testing your new eye’s flexibility. “It’s like the old one’s still there.”

“That’s good.” Perry sips her latte. “About the old one…”

“Nope.”

“Why won’t you tell me what happened?” she says. “I can handle it, I promise. Even if it’s very gruesome. …It’s not very gruesome, is it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You said you’d tell me once we got away from Silas.”

“I’ll tell you when we’re further away,” you improvise. “Just not now.”

“It’s always ‘not now.’” 

“Why do you have to know?” You don’t realize you’re yelling until people start staring. “It didn’t happen to you, it’s not your business!”

Perry falls quiet. She stares down into her drink, watching the foam slowly deflate. “I’m sorry,” she says after a minute’s painful silence.

“Don’t be,” you say, biting back everything she doesn’t know. Everything she can’t know. 

“You’re right, it’s not my business,” she continues, eyes still fixed on the latte. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, and you saved me, and…you don’t owe me anything else.” 

“It’s not about owing, it’s —”

“I know, but I shouldn’t have pushed you, I don’t want to push you. I just — I don’t understand,” her voice catches on a sob, “I don’t understand what happened, I don’t remember anything except darkness and I know you’re in pain from it all and I can’t help you.”

“Hey, hey.” You reach across the table, brushing away some of the hair falling across her face. “You are helping me.”

“I’m not,” she says, lower lip trembling. 

“You are. You’re _here._ ” She finally looks up from the table, meeting your mismatched gaze. Blinking back tears, you say, “I missed you so much.”

Perry hiccup-laughs. “Why?” 

“What d’you mean, ‘why?’” 

Perry opens her mouth, looks around the cafe at the dozens of people staring at her, and bolts out of the door. 

You follow, scanning the road just in time to see a flash of red dart around the corner. Neither of you were big track stars in high school, but Jesus, Perry can run. It’s a good thing you spot her huddled on a bench a couple blocks down.

“Perr,” you call, trying to catch your breath. 

She looks up, tearstained. “Leave me alone.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen.” You take a seat on the bench. “What’s going on?”

A long silence. Then: “I wasn’t worth it.” 

“Worth —?”

“Any of it. Anything you did.” Perry pulls her knees to her chest. “The others wanted to kill me, right? Laura and Carmilla?” She takes your hesitation as an answer. “Of course they did. I would’ve wanted that too, if it was someone else with an evil god in her brain. But you— you — _fought_ for me, and you shouldn’t have. I’m not special, LaF. No, just let me talk,” she snaps when you start to interrupt. “I would have made such a good sacrifice. What would the world be missing out on? Reasonably good french toast? I’ve always been afraid you would leave me when you made it big, cured cancer or whatever, but really, you should have left. Like, a long time ago.”

She’s stopped crying. Instead, she’s staring straight ahead, perfectly still. You, on the other hand, are very close to losing your shit.

“I’m guessing you couldn’t hear it when I spilled my guts to the Dean?” you say. She glances at you, shaking her head. “Dear old Deanie was conked out on the floor courtesy of a stun gun, but it was also you, sort of, and…I can give you the abridged version of what I said, okay? A world without you isn’t a world I want to live in. You’re not worthless, Perr. You’re not small. I’d poke out my other eye to get you to fucking see that.” 

Perry giggles a little, her hands splayed on her lap. She doesn’t believe in her worth yet, and that’s okay. You can’t bring yourself to hold her hand yet, and that’s okay. It’s okay. Baby steps. 


	2. Chapter 2

One morning, in the middle of making french toast, Perry turns to you and asks, “Do you want to go home?”

Three days later, carrying the few possessions you still have, the two of you arrive in your hometown. It’s just like you remembered it.

—————————————————————————-

It’s nothing like you remembered it. 

—————————————————————————-

_“_ Would you like some water, _LaFontaine_? _”_ Perry’s mother asks. (She’s asked you a million times to call her Roberta, but you can never quite get yourself to do it.)

“No, thanks.” You twirl on the spinny kitchen chair you used to love as a kid. Nothing’s changed, really; there’s a couple new paintings in the hallway, and the pictures by the mantle have been updated, but mostly, it’s the same house you used to escape to every minute you could. 

“Lola, dear?”

“Hm? Oh. Sure.” Perry takes a glass. Her feet knock against yours under the table.

“It’s such a treat to see you kids,” Perry’s mom says, leaning her chin on her hands. “It feels like an eternity since you left for school. Tell me, _LaFontaine —_ are colored contact lenses in right now?”

“Yeah,” you lie. “It’s part of the whole steampunk craze. Gotta stay on top of the fashion world, right?”

“Very bold.” Mrs. Perry beams at you. “You always did have such a sense of style. Speaking of which — Lola, did you want to sort through your clothes? I’ve got about ten boxes upstairs of all kinds of things.” 

Perry gets up, eying the stairs. “Yes, I really should.”

“Want help?” you ask.

“No, no,” she says, twisting her hands nervously. “I’d rather do it myself. Shouldn’t you unpack?”

“Unpack what? All I’ve got is tech gear and a toothbrush.”

“You could at least make it neater,” Perry suggests. “It’s all in a pile, right now.”

“Let them rest,” Mrs. Perry sighs. “You two have had a long trip.” Perry disappears up the stairs, and her mom turns to you, smiling. “So. What are you working on right now? Proton defibrillator? Ectoplasmic radiation gun?”

“No, because none of that is a thing.”

She laughs. “Can’t blame me for trying to sound smart.”

“I just finished a big project,” you say, self-consciously rubbing your eye. “Not sure what I’m gonna do now.”

“Any plans on continuing your education?” Mrs. Perry asks. 

“Uh…”

“Of course, I’m sure that’s the farthest thing from your mind. I can’t believe Silas closed so quickly. You’d think a university would have enough donors to bail itself out of a situation like that.”

You’re not sure what she thinks the “situation like that” actually is; Perry told her some story about a lack of funding, but you’re iffy on the specifics. You make a noncommittal noise. 

“How have you been, love?” Mrs. Perry takes a seat next to you. “Any word from your folks?”

“Nah,” you shrug. 

“Not even after you left school?”

“I don’t think they know. Besides, they weren’t too keen on Silas in the first place.”

“Neither were you,” Mrs. Perry reminds you. Glancing at the stairs, she says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How is Lola doing?”

You swallow. “Uh, in general?”

“I suppose,” she says. “Is she more stressed than usual?”

“Maybe,” you say uneasily. “It was a hard semester.”

“Right.” Mrs. Perry pulls her hair back into a bun. Her hair is even wilder than her daughter’s. “Has she been sleeping okay?”

“Have you asked her about this stuff?”

Mrs. Perry sighs. “I tried. I know she’d come to me if anything serious was going on, but…”

“It was a _really_ hard semester,” you reiterate, because what else can you say? That her daughter was possessed by an evil god for the better half of a year? 

Mrs. Perry studies you for a moment. You wait, holding your breath, for another question you can’t answer. It doesn’t come; instead, Mrs. Perry smiles sadly and says, “You should go check on her, dear. I don’t think she really wants to be alone.” 

—————————————————————————-

You enter Perry’s room and are promptly hit in the face by a flying sweater. Perry is tearing through her old clothes, tossing things over her shoulder left and right.

“When choosing a weapon, I wouldn’t go with something that has knit bunnies on it,” you say, holding up the offending piece of clothing. “Not that it didn’t pack a punch.”

Perry turns. “Did I hit you?”

“No worries, my face has been through worse.”

“All of this is so old,” she says, hands full of brightly-colored fabric. “Why did I even buy some of these?”

You join her on the floor, picking through the boxes. “This one’s nice,” you comment, smoothing out a turquoise vest. 

“Put it in the ‘keep’ pile.” 

To your right, there are two clumps of clothing: a mound so large it reaches your eye level, and a small stack of neatly-folded items. “Which one’s the ‘keep’ pile?” She gestures at the tiny stack. “Really? You’re gonna toss the rest?”

“I’ll donate it,” she says, shrugging. 

“But there’s so much good stuff here!” You dig into the discarded clothes, dragging out an especially memorable sweater. “Aw, come on, you can’t get rid of this.”

Perry raises an eyebrow. “You hated that thing.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did! Every time I wore it, you said I looked like — ”

“— a rodeo clown, I know! I love it! Who else but you could pull off that look? Or — oh, man, Perr.” You pick up a flower-patterned dress. “The hippy dress? You can’t lose the hippy dress.”

She laughs. “All I need is my incense.”

You look at the clothes currently in the ‘keep’ pile. They’re an eclectic bunch, mostly formalwear or small articles like scarves. “Why aren’t you keeping more?”

“I don’t know,” she says, playing with her hair. “I don’t want to.”

“But why?”

“LaF,” she groans. “I don’t _know_ , okay?”

“Okay.” You fold the dress, returning it to the ‘discard’ pile. “You know I always liked your clothes, right?”

“I know.” Perry reaches out a reassuring hand, and you flinch away. “Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Sort of…jump, if I try to touch you.”

“I’m just jumpy,” you lie. “The run-ins with all things supernatural finally caught up with me, I think.”

She stays silent. After a moment, she says quietly, “I think the Dean hated me.”

You tense. “You remember something?”

“No, just…she destroyed my clothes,” Perry says, looking at her lap. “She changed my hair, she…”

“She was evil,” you remind her. “It doesn’t matter what she thought about your aesthetic.”

Perry throws another sweater onto the ‘discard’ pile, this one laden with what looks like multicolored cotton balls. “God,” she sighs, “why do all my shirts have such stupid things on them?” 

“They’re not stupid.”

“No, they’re not.” Perry looks around, blowing a stray curl out of her eyes. “I like my clothes, LaF,” she says. “I miss them. So why do they feel so _wrong_ now?”

You look at her hands, playing absently with an old shirt. “Come on,” you say. “Let’s take a walk.”

—————————————————————————-

By your old elementary school playground, there’s an oak tree with branches that spill out over the schoolyard fence. You used to climb it during recess while Perry hissed at you to get down — until the day you climbed too high.

“You were so scared,” Perry remembers, boots crunching over the fallen leaves. “I don’t think I’d ever seen you scared before.”

You look up at the giant tree. “Oh my god, I was terrified. I was like, wait! Lola’s the one who’s supposed to be terrified!”

Perry laughs. “So _I_ had to be the brave one! It was awful!”

The two of you stand, lost in the memory: Perry scaling the tree in minutes, the first time she’d ever broken the rules; Perry telling you quite confidently that everything was going to be okay; Perry helping you safely to the ground; Perry immediately telling the teacher, losing your recess privileges for a week. 

“Do you really think it’s still there?” she asks.

“Only one way to find out.”

You circle the tree, inspecting the trunk. After a minute with no results, your heart starts sinking — it’s not like you were the only people to do stuff like this — but then you spot it, scratched into the bark: _S + L_.

“Susan plus Lola,” Perry says softly, running a hand over the faded letters. “After all this time.”

“After all this time,” you echo. 

There’s a silence. She crosses her arms, staring intently at the tree. “I’m sorry about JP,” she murmurs.

“Oh. Uh — thanks.”

“I was so rude to him, and it wasn’t fair. He was a good person.”

“Where’s this coming from?” you ask.

“Oh, I don’t know. The two letters thing got me thinking.” Perry glances at you, then back to the scratched-out letters. “I was really used to it just being S plus L.”

“I know,” you say, fighting off the lump rising in your throat. “Me too.”

“There’s always room for more letters,” she continues, leaning against the tree. “I don’t want you to think I’ll freak out again, if someone else comes along.”

“You didn’t freak out.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly welcoming.”

“I won’t freak out either,” you say, brushing your hair out of your eyes. “If, you know, you meet someone. It’s not like I expect you to be my adventure buddy for life.”

She looks at you sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be your adventure buddy for life?”

“No, I mean, if you found someone and didn’t want to do this stuff anymore. The fight-an-evil-god kind of stuff. Because I’m gonna keep doing it, and I know it’s not totally your idea of a fun time.”

“LaF,” she says, and pauses. She takes a step toward you, and you stop breathing and you start hoping, heart pounding, for what she might say next. After a long moment, she finally opens her mouth and says, “Do you have your swiss army knife?”

You blink. “What?”

“Your swiss army knife. Do you have it on you?”

You hand it over, cursing yourself for being an idiot. She takes it and stands by the tree, carefully slicing into the bark. When she’s done, she steps back to let you see: _L + P_ , carved right above the old lettering.

“LaFontaine plus Perry,” she explains. “Since the old version was a little outdated.”

The stupid lump charges up your throat. “Aw, Perr.”

“Adventure buddies for life, okay?” she says.

“Yeah,” you say, squeezing her shoulder. “Adventure buddies for life.” 


End file.
